It’s All Relative

Since CPC prices are often closely linked to the potential profitability of a sale from that keyword, the CPC price is often a mute point. A ‘bad credit history remortgage’ could be worth $15,000 profit to a remortgage broker, so having CPCs in excess of $50.00 can deliver a strong return on investment.

On the other hand, the keyword ‘New York weather’ has little commercial intention, so keywords such as this tend to benefit from low CPCs.

While this relativity of CPC prices makes CPC comparisons across sectors rather meaningless, most PPC advertisers would jump at the chance to pay lower CPCs. So below are 4 strategies I’ve found useful for achieving lower CPCs, while still maintaining a strong conversion rate.

Source: Wordstream

1. Use Long Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are those highly-specific, infrequently searched-for phrases such as ‘all inclusive holidays to Paris from Sydney’, which turn up in your search query report. Since they tend to have less advertiser competition, they can be considerably cheaper than more generic keywords such as ‘Paris holidays’.

What’s more, since people making long-tail searchers have arguably carried out the large majority of their pre-purchase research, and are often further along in the buying cycle, long-tail searches can have a considerably higher conversion rate.

Cheaper CPCs and higher conversion rates were exactly what I found when analysing search queries containing different numbers of words. Searches containing 4 or more words performed consistently better than searches containing fewer than 4 words.

Recommendations:

• Use Google’s Keyword Tool to research keywords which have approximately 100 searches/month. These tend to get overlooked by a large number of PPC advertisers.
• Take advantage of the ‘more like these’ feature in Google’s Keyword Tool to continue to build your list of long-tail keywords.
• Run a search query report to look at the search queries which get matched to your keywords. If they are relevant, and have a decent click volume, add them as new keywords and give them their own tailored ads. This way, instead of long-tail searches being matched to your more generic keywords, they will now be matched to longer keywords, giving you more control over ad messages and bid optimisation.

2. Research Uncompetitive Themes

Keywords which have less competition often have lower CPCs. Finding keyword with less competition often requires you to think outside the box, although with the right tools and approach you can be diversifying your keyword portfolio in no time.

Recommendations:

• Plug the URL of a competitor’s website into Google’s Keyword Tool and see what comes up. If their products and services are worded differently to yours, it can uncover some previously-overlooked terminology.
• Mine your search query report to uncover themes which you previously overlooked. Don’t worry if a search query has only a handful of clicks –you’re trying to research new themes from searches which have matched to your existing keywords, so click volumes would likely be much greater if they are added as new keywords.
• Look for numbers which frequently crop up in your search query report. If you’re selling holidays, consider how people type the dates into their search, such as ‘France holidays December 2011′, or ‘winter 2012 skiing deals Queenstown’. If you can provide tailored ads which cater for these date searches, you will likely receive high click through rates (CTR), high Quality Scores, and low CPCs.
• Use Google Insights for Search to find breakout searches. These are searches which have recently increased in popularity by at least 400%, and can be excellent opportunities for highly-profitable keyword targeting due to their relatively low competition and relatively low CPCs.
• Ask friends or family how they might search for your products and services.

3. Use Modified Broad Match

Modified Broad Match is a variation of broad match, but allows you greater control over the types of search queries which trigger your ads. By placing a plus (+) sign in front of certain words in your keyword, Google will only match your keyword to searches which contain all of the words with a preceding plus sign.

So if your keyword was ‘+cheap +deals to +Rome’, you can be sure than any searches matching to your keyword must contain the words ‘cheap’, ‘deals’, and ‘Rome’.

Modified broad match is a great way to improve the quality and profitability from your AdWords campaigns. In some recent research I carried out on modified broad match keywords, keywords with a greater amount of broad match modification tended to have considerably higher CTRs and significantly lower CPCs.

Recommendations:

• Take advantage of modified broad match. It allows you greater control over the types of searches which trigger your keywords.
• Be mindful that restricting the match types of your keywords may reduce your click volume, so compensate for this by researching additional keywords and themes.
• Broad match generation can also be a useful tool to allow your more generic non-modified broad match keywords to catch relevant search traffic which have not yet been added as modified broad match keyword.

4. Be Relevant

Despite PPC often being dubbed as saturated and highly-competitive, the truth is there are massive opportunities everywhere for PPC advertisers to achieve high profitability by providing highly-relevant and helpful ads, which engage with their target audience.

Searches on Google are now becoming increasingly diverse, complex, and unique, and users are expecting a higher degree of relevancy and helpfulness from search results. If you can be the advertiser which caters for the specific needs and requirements of searchers, visitors will reward you with their wallets. And since click through rate (CTR) is a large component of Quality Score, if you can achieve a high CTR, low CPCs will naturally follow.

Recommendations:

• Create hundreds of highly-granular ad groups, each containing only a handful of very similar keywords.
• Tailor your ad messages to your ad group’s keywords. If the ad group contains keywords related to ‘Winter 2012 Queenstown holidays’, ensure your ads also mention cater for Queenstown holidays in Winter 2012.
• Run an ad group report and find your ad groups which receive a large number of clicks. Changes are those ad groups are being matched to a large number of very different searches, so could benefit from being split out. The 10% Clicks Rule is a useful tool for quickly and efficiently identifying your ad groups which could benefit from being split out. Follow the 3 part guide for step-by-step instructions of how to do this.
• Examine your ad groups with high CPCs and low CTRs. Consider how closely your search queries match to that ad group’s ads. If a gap exists between the ad group’s searches and the ad group’s ads, consider how you can make changes to boost your relevancy.

Return on Investment is the Goal

Quality Score doesn’t sell anything. Click through rate doesn’t sell anything. CPCs don’t sell anything. Improving these metrics should not be the objective of your campaign. Improving ROI should be.

All other things equal, if you reduce your CPCs by 20%, great!

But are all other things equal? In trying to reduce your CPCs, have your sacrificed volume? Have you sacrificed quality? Are paying lower CPCs simply because visitors are now less relevant and less likely to convert? Are you now missing out on more relevant and potentially more profitable searches?

CPCs or Quality Score or CTR should not be the end goal of your PPC campaign. Return on investment should be. There’s no harm in paying 50% higher CPCs if your profit increases by 60%. So only use CPCs as a guide.

By all means use long-tail keywords, search query reports, and modified broad match as a means to lower your CPCs. But make sure your sales volume and ROI also rises as a result.

Alan Mitchell is a Google AdWords certified PPC specialist based in Melbourne, Australia, with over 4 years running successful PPC campaigns for businesses in Australia and overseas. Find out how the specialist PPC management such as the 4 PPC strategies above can help you improve your return on investment from PPC marketing, or get in touch for more information.

We all know first impressions count. First impressions are crucial for forming beliefs and expectations about a business and its product and service offering. And since your pay per click (PPC) ads are one of your first touch points with online potential customers, and one you have massive control over, your PPC ads are your first opportunity to mould a positive image of your business to potential customers.

Just like it makes sense to invest in a shiny new lobby or reception area to create a positive first impression to new prospective clients, so it also makes sense to ensure your PPC ads portray professionalism, trust and credibility. Below are 9 suggestions of how to appear more credible on Google to better engage with potential customers and increase your conversion rate.

1. Spelling

Make sure spelling in your ads is correct – even when matching to mis-spelt keywords. Avoid dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) for mis-spelt and highly-generic keywords. Export your PPC campaigns to Excel and run a spell-check – you’ll be surprised how easily typos can crop up in ads.

2. Grammar

Make sure your messages are grammatically correct and read clearly as a sentence. Stay away from over-abbreviated ‘txt msg’ style wording which looks amateur and unprofessional. Avoid ‘keyword stuffing’, especially when it is at the expense of message flow. Instead, try including words such as ‘the’, ‘and’, ‘of’ and ‘to’, which can help your messages read more elegantly and portray a better image of your brand.

3. Capitalisation

Be consistent with capitalisation. Whether you’re using start case or only capitalising open-class words, make sure it’s consistent. Experiment with capitalisation to find the style which works best for your business.

4. Punctuation

Avoid over-use of hyphens, commas and other unnecessary punctuation. Special characters can draw the eye, and achieve a higher click through rate, but it can make you look rather amateur and can affect conversion rates. Google only allows one exclamation mark in PPC ads, but that doesn’t mean you have to use an exclamation mark in every ad. Sometimes subtle is better.

5. Closure

Unless your ad is written as a single sentence across both lines of ad text, make sure description line 1 and description line 2 end in a full stop (or exclamation mark). If your ad does not contain full-stops because you’ve reached your 35 character limit, choose a shorter message to close off the sentence with a full stop. Think about how your ads will read now that Google are implementing longer headlines, where both your headline and description line 1 are displayed as a single headline. Does it read well? Does your message make sense in this format?

6. Equality

Try to make both description lines of your ads equal in length. Neatly-formatted ads look clear, concise and well-considered, so avoid having one line of text significantly longer than the other. Try to use 30-35 characters where possible, but also experiment with shorter messages of 25-30 characters. Words such as ‘Now’, ‘Today’, and ‘Online’ are often useful buffer words for creating ad descriptions of equal lengths.

7. Clear Message

Don’t waffle. Have a clear message and give the impression you understand your product. Be specific, state your unique selling points (USPs), and use prices and numbers to quantify your claims. Ads with a clear and confident focus will look and perform considerably better than those with a highly generic message.

8. Display URLs

Avoid ‘keyword stuffing’ your display URLs. Including search terms in display URLs might make your ad more visible and may improve CTR and Quality Score, but since longer URLs are often considered less credible, conversion rates may suffer. Sometimes a shorter display URL looks better than one which tries too hard.

9. Relevancy

No-one likes irrelevant amateur-looking ads, and ads which look like they understand customer needs portray a sense of credibility and authority. Ensure your ads are personalised to users’ search queries and include keywords in headlines and descriptions where possible. Take time to invest in a granular ad group structure.

Conclusion

First impressions count. No more so than on Google, with a huge number of people using Google to carry out initial research about a product or service. Your Google AdWords campaigns are often your first contact with new potential customers, so it’s essential to portray your business in a positive light to maximise your chance of conversion.

Don’s be like eBay and find your PPC campaigns being talked about for all the wrong reasons. Ensure your PPC campaigns give off a message to be proud of.

Alan Mitchell is an experienced Google AdWords consultant helping businesses in Australia increase their return on investment from PPC marketing. For more information on how specialist PPC marketing can benefit your business, get in touch today for a free consultation.

So it comes as a surprise to see widespread discussion criticising the quality of Google search results among search marketing professionals, talk of people getting up in arms because they can’t find the information they are looking for, mention of people having to resort to old-fashioned bookmarking to avoid losing track of that golden nugget of an article they found back in 2003.

Are search results really becoming less relevant? Or are our expectations of high quality search results increasing faster that improvements in search quality can keep up? While Google no doubt needs to continue to improve the relevancy and usefulness of it search results, it’s not just Google who need to improve. We can also learn how to better construct our search queries to find the right information more quickly and easily.

More Information

There are no two ways about it – the amount of information on the internet is growing at an exponential rate. And while the number of pages being indexed by search engines such as Google rises exponentially, the number of Google search results remains unchanged. More information, but still only 10 search results. Google, therefore, are faced with the dilemma of trying to organise the world’s increasingly varied information into 10 small search results, while at the same time trying to please an increasing number of varied searchers who use the same search words but have entirely different requirements.

But should we really blame Google? Perhaps Google’s search results have not got less relevant. Perhaps, instead, our demands for increased relevancy have grown, providing us with the false illusion that Google’s search result relevancy has deteriorated.

Be Commanding

While Google must work to improve the relevancy of its search results, and also better understand searcher intentions to provide the most appropriate, useful, and personalised search results, we also need to take some responsibility if want a seamless searching experience. Faced with the dilemma of mounting information yet more increasingly individualistic preferences, we need to become more informed about how to better find the information we seek. Let’s have a look at a few possibilities using Google’s search commands:

1. Use “quotation marks” if you know certain words appear in a certain order. This is especially useful for finding the name of song if you only know one line, or finding an academic article if you know the title.
2. Use +plus +signs to denote essential words in your search query. These are words which you know are important to your search, and must be included in your search query. Avoid using plus signs for words about which you are as less confident, as this will dilute the relative importance of your more essential words.
3. Use –hyphens to remove words which you know are irrelevant. If you’re looking for football (soccer) pitches in Australia, and see a whole bunch of results for AFL pitches, adding the word ‘–AFL’ would improve the relevancy of your results considerably.
4. Use OR operators if you are unsure of certain aspects of your query. If you’d like to eat at a Melbourne Italian restaurant in either Windsor or Prahran, searching for ‘Melbourne Italian restaurant Windsor OR Prahran’ would show results which satisfy either of your location criteria.

Be Creative

But it’s not just about learning the Google commands. For a completely stress-free searching experience, it’s also about learning how to think strategically, creatively intelligently when making searches:

1. Use the rarest and most unique words possible. If you’re looking for a certain hotel in New York your friend recommended recently, but can’t quite remember the name, don’t just search for ‘New York hotels’. Where possible, try to include rarer and more unique words such as ‘hotels Manhattan’ (if you know the hotel is in Manhattan), or include other unique aspects such as ‘cheapskate Tuesdays’ you know about the hotel. Similarly, if you’re looking for that article you read last year, try to remember something unique about it. Did the article provide an uncommon but memorable metaphor to illustrate a point? Did it mention anything which would separate it from other similar articles on the subject, and make it one of a kind? The more unique and specific you can make your search, the better.
2. Only include words in your search query which will narrow down the information you seek. Avoid adding words into your search query which do little to better specify your intentions, as this will reduce search result relevancy. Google can’t weight the relative importance of each of your words (other than using plus signs to denote essential words), and will see each of your words as equal importance. So if the 4^th word in your query is not as helpful as your first three words, get rid of it – this will add more weighting to your more important words.
3. Consider how combinations of Google commands can help you be more specific. If you’re looking for the name of a song, but can only remember two short lines of lyrics, enter those lyrics in the same query, but separate them with quotation marks. If all you can remember about the song is the words ‘walk by the trees’ and ‘coat to the rain’, entering those words into google without quotation marks will give you an unhelpful result. However, thinking strategically, and placing each of your lyric snippets in quotation marks, will provide a very helpful result. By using Google strategically, you can quickly and easy find the name of the song that’s stuck in your head.

And the creativity doesn’t just stop there. Ken Lyons from WordStream wrote an excellent article on using Google to find anyone’s email address, providing numerous examples of how to cleverly construct your search queries to retrieve only the most  useful results. Similarly, Ann Smarty provided some great insight into using Google to find guest post opportunities, identifying key phrases which are likely to appear on pages asking for guest post writers. Want a new job? Try searching for something like:

+location + “job title” “we’re looking for” OR “ideal candidate will” OR “the following skills” OR “your CV” OR “your resume” OR “cover letter” OR “covering letter”

Or get even more creative and add date parameters into your job search to increase the likelihood of finding recent job postings. It could be a great way to find poorly advertised job postings and give yourself a greater chance of securing a new role.

Be Intelligent

It is all too easy to jump on the bandwagon and become frustrated with Google’s search results. While Google obviously has a significant role to play in improving their search results, so searchers also have a role to play in learning how to better structure their search queries. Plus signs for required words, hyphens for irrelevant words, and inverted commas for phrases would improve the average searcher’s experience considerably, while thinking more creatively would also get better results. If we can learn to search more intelligently and strategically, I imagine few people will have trouble finding their desired information quickly and efficiently.

Do you think Google’s results are becoming less relevant? Or do you think it’s simply a case of making more intelligent search queries? Share your thoughts and comments below.

Alan Mitchell is an experienced Google AdWords consultant helping businesses in Australia increase their return on investment from PPC marketing. For more information on how a strategic approach to PPC can benefit your business, get in touch today for a free consultation.

Long-tail keywords are those low-volume, obscure, infrequently searched-for keywords that turn up in your search query reports. ‘Cheap remortgage for bad credit history’ is one example of a long-tail keyword. ‘Remortgages’ is not.

The theory goes like this:

• Long-tail keywords, en masse, can provide significant search volume (high impressions)
• Long-tail keywords have less competition than generic keywords (lower cost per click (CPC), higher click-through rate (CTR))
• Long-tail keywords are more specific than generic keywords, so ads can be better tailored to match the searcher’s needs (higher CTR, higher Quality Score, less wastage from irrelevant searches)
• People making long-tail searches are often further along in the buying cycle and more willing to buy than people making generic searches (higher conversion rate)
• These lower CPCs, higher CTRs and higher conversion rates mean long-tail keywords can be extremely profitable (lower cost per acquisition (CPA))

So are long-tail keywords all they are cracked up to be? Are they worth all the time, effort and commitment they require?

In short: yes.

Over the course of this article you’ll see exactly how search volume, CTR, CPCs, average position, conversion rate and CPA differs for searches containing different numbers of words, and how long-tail keywords can benefit your business immensely. Using three months of real Google AdWords campaign data, you’ll see that long-tail searches outperform generic short-tail searches on almost every measure, and provide a great opportunity to connect with customers which is generally not being taken by the majority of advertisers.

1. Search Volume (Impressions)

Let’s start with search volume. Do people make long-tail searches in any meaningful volume?

Look at the example below. Although 1 and 2-word searches may be under-represented in the example (the account has a natural bias towards keywords of at least 3 words), it is clear that as the number of words in a search query increases beyond 3, the number of searches made using that that number of words falls.

This isn’t surprising. You would of course expect search volume to drop as searches start becoming obscure and lengthy. It is little surprise that more people are making shorter searches such as as ‘cheap televisions Brisbane’ (3 words) instead of longer searches such as ‘low cost Sony Bravia television shops in Brisbane’ (8 words).

What is worth noting, however, is the power of these long-tail keywords en masse. Added together, searches of 5 words or more accounted for 21% of all impressions. While long-tail keywords may be individually insignificant, a PPC campaign with thousands of long-tails can be a serious source of additional traffic.

Fact: Long-tail searches have significant search volume

2. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Another common belief among search marketers is that click-through rate (CTR) is higher for long-tail keywords. Their reasoning being:

1. Long-tail keywords have less competition, so there is a higher chance someone will click your ad
2. Long-tail keywords are more specific in their requirements, so you can write a more targeted and relevant ad to encourage the searcher to click

While the first point is perhaps rather tenuous (Google’s broad-matching mechanism often sends long-tail searches to advertisers’ short-tail keywords), the second point is definitely true. If someone searches for ‘cheap Sony Bravia 46 inch televisions’, and your ad mentions the words ‘Sony Bravia’, ’46 inch’ and ‘televisions’, perhaps with latest prices for that model, it makes sense that your ad will be more appealing than a generic ‘Sony televisions’ ad.

Let’s have a look at CTR for searches of different word counts. While searches of 1, 2 and 3 words have a relatively low CTR, CTR appears to increase significantly for searches of at least 4 words. CTR, it seems, is considerably stronger for long-tail keywords.

Fact: Long-tail keywords can achieve a higher CTR, as long as ads are tailored to the search query

3. Cost Per Click (CPC) & Average Position

Many search marketers also believe long-tail keywords are cheaper. They have less competition, fewer people bidding on them to drive up their prices, so CPCs will be kept relatively low.

So are long-tail keywords cheaper than generic keywords?

To answer this question, it is important to bring average position into consideration. Since CPCs and ad rankings are closely connected (a higher CPC typically means higher ad ranking), both average position and CPCs need to be considered together.

First, let’s look at CPCs. For searches of 13 words or more, CPCs do tend to be cheaper. For searches under 13 words, however, CPCs tend to be very similar. A 9-word search query costs pretty much the same price as a 4-word search query. CPCs do fall very slightly as word length increases from 3 to 12 words, but I would hardly call that significant.

Now let’s look at average position (a higher bar represents a higher ad ranking). For 1, 2 and 3-word searches, ad ranking is relatively low, and ads are appearing near the bottom of the first page. As word length increases, however, ads are shown significantly higher. They are appearing in the top positions.

So although CPCs were relatively similar for searches of all word counts, long-tails were often shown in a higher position.

When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. When you set a maximum CPC bid for each keyword, Google will show you as high as possible without going over your maximum bid. If long tail keywords are cheaper, Google won’t necessarily charge you less. It is in their interest to charge you as much as possible, so they will instead keep your CPCs close to your maximum bid but show you in a higher position.

Fact: Long-tail keywords are cheaper for the same ad ranking, or the same price for a higher ad ranking

4. Conversion Rate

So we’ve seen that long-tail keywords have a significant search volume. They exhibit a strong CTR and are often cheaper than their short-tailed rivals. But clicks are no good if people don’t engage with your site or part with their cash. It’s often conversion that really matters.

So are long-tail searches more likely to convert?

Many search marketers seem to think so – their reasoning being that people who make longer, more specific searches have already done their research and know exactly what they want. They are further along in the buying cycle so are more likely to open their wallet.

Let’s have a look at conversion rate for searches of different word counts.

It’s a pretty convincing trend. As the number of words increases, so does conversion rate.

Fact: Long-tail keywords have a higher conversion rate

5. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Finally, what does this mean for CPA, profitability, return on investment (ROI)? Is it cheaper to acquire a customer through the long-tail?

Let’s have a look at the CPA column.

Again, there appears to be a clear trend between word count and CPA. Conversions from long-tail searches seem to be cheaper than conversions from generic, short-tail searches.

And it’s not just one or two conversions which are coming through long-tail searches, either. Remember how long-tails of 5 words or more accounted for 21% of all searches? Well, those 21% of long-tails generated a massive 40.5% of all conversions.

Fact: Long-tail keywords have a lower cost per acquisition and can be extremely profitable

Long-Tails Are Your Friend

As we have seen, the benefits of long-tail keywords are many:

1. Significant search volume
2. Higher CTR
3. Cheaper CPCs (or higher ad ranking)
4. Higher conversion rate
5. Lower CPA

Quite simply, they outperform generic, short-tail keywords on every measure.

Don’t get me wrong, long-tails shouldn’t replace your short-tail keywords. Short-tails, if used wisely, are great for building interest and awareness at the early stages of the buying cycle. Your long-tail keyword strategy should complement your short-tail strategy.

So by all means continue showing on your high-volume keywords – after all, they may be your bread and butter that keep your business afloat. But the next time you work on you AdWords account, spend some time researching relevant long-tail keywords. Try to think what people are actually searching for and use keyword tools to help. Structure your keywords into closely-themed ad groups and tailor your ads and landing pages to cater for these specialised long-tail searches.

Your Moment to Shine

Of course, researching thousands of keywords and structuring them into hundreds of closely-themed ad groups, each with tailored ads and landing pages, is by no means easy. It will take considerable time, effort and dedication, not to mention the many hours of keyword and search query analysis, ad group expansion and ad copy testing once your keywords are live.

But think about your target audience for a minute. They are calling out for someone to meet their needs in a personalised and relevant way. It’s the age of social interaction, and people are sick of seeing generic ad after generic ad. And despite many advertisers claiming they are “doing this already”, consumers are not currently getting a personalised and relevant service (see Relevancy: The Holy Grail of PPC).

If you can be the advertiser who understands your audience using search query analysis, if you can cater for their individual needs with relevant ads and landing pages, if you can be the one who makes a mark in your industry, customers will reward you with their wallet. It’s your opportunity to stand out from the competition. So take it.

Alan Mitchell is an experienced Google AdWords consultant helping businesses in Australia increase their return on investment from PPC marketing. For more information on how a strategic long-tail approach to PPC can benefit your business, get in touch today for a free consultation.

Why? Because paid search relevancy can pay massive dividends. Not only is a highly relevant pay per click (PPC) campaign more likely to receive a higher click-through rate (CTR), higher Quality Score, higher ad rankings, lower costs per click (CPC) and benefit from less wasted spend, but users will more qualified so bounce rates are likely to fall (the number of people who immediately ‘bounce’ back), conversion rates increase and return on investment (ROI) will ultimately improve. So a highly relevant paid search campaign is definitely a good thing.

To achieve PPC relevancy, keywords, ads and landing pages need to work together in tandem. Messages in ads need to match users’ search queries, landing pages need to match messages in ads and landing pages need to relate to users’ original searches. (For a more detailed explanation of how each component interlinks, you might like to consult Acquisio’s great article on AdWords relevancy and Quality Score).

Closely matching ads and landing pages to keywords to encourage only targeted and qualified users to visit your site is a simple theory, and one that’s been around since the dawn of Google AdWords.

So nothing new then – does that mean relevancy is no longer relevant?

Well, not exactly, for two reasons…

Impossible to achieve

Firstly, relevancy can never be achieved in its perfect form. There will always be ways a PPC advertiser can improve his keyword selection, negative keyword list, match type strategy, ad copy matching and landing page selection to give the user a more engaging and personalised experience. Just like there will never be a 10.0 film on IMDB, there will never be a perfectly relevant PPC campaign. One can only strive towards perfection – towards the Holy Grail of relevancy.

Higher expectations

Secondly, the bar of relevancy is constantly being raised. As search engine continually improve their algorithms to provide users with more relevant organic search results, so paid search ads will have to improve to keep up with the growing expectations of searchers. Ads which might have been considered ‘quite relevant’ last year may be considered ‘not so relevant’ now. Ads which sufficiently answer the questions of searchers today may not do so next year when people start to demand a more personalized and tailored service.

So not only is the Holy Grail of relevancy (a perfectly relevant campaign) impossible to achieve, but it is getting more and more impossible to achieve as we speak.

But all is not lost. No-one expects perfection, after all. Just being better than the competition can reap massive benefits for advertisers. And as I’m about to point out, getting better than the competition doesn’t need to be difficult. There are opportunities everywhere.

Opportunities

Say you’re interested in visiting Sydney and want somewhere to stay. Load up Google, search for ‘Sydney hotels’ and look at the paid search results.

Of the 10 PPC ads, 9 mention the words ‘Sydney’ and ‘hotels’. Most of the ads are calling out to the user, “I have hotels in Sydney! Come to Me!” Most of the ads are relevant to your search.

But let’s say you know a little bit more about your Sydney hotel requirements. After all, you can’t be bothered clicking through each of the hundreds of paid search results (or the 22,900,000 organic results for that matter). Come to think of it, you are interested in going to Sydney next weekend, you your refine your search query.

Search for ‘weekend breaks in Sydney’ and look at the paid search results. Although most ads mention ‘Sydney’, not a single advertiser includes the words ‘weekend’ or ‘break’ in their ads. No-one is shouting out to the user, “Yes! I have weekend breaks in Sydney! Come to me!” Every ad appear to be a generic ‘Sydney Hotel’ ad that may or may not be relevant to your weekend requirements.

Suppose, instead, when searching for ‘weekend breaks in Sydney’, you saw one of the following ads:

Suppose they took you through to a special ‘weekend break’ page, specifically designed for people looking to stay at the hotel over the weekend. Along with suggestions of local Sydney sights, activities and restaurants that could easily be fitted in over a weekend were reviews from people staying at the hotel on Friday and Saturday nights.

Would you be more likely to consider this hotel in your plans? I know I might.

More opportunities

Okay, only 36 people searched for ‘weekend breaks in Sydney’ in June. But these were 36 people who knew what they were looking for and were delivered poor, generic, one-message-fits-all ads.

‘Weekend breaks in Sydney’ is just one example. Imagine all the hundreds of similar qualified searches people could make to find your products or services. 880 people searched for ‘Sydney CBD hotels’ in June, but most advertisers fail to mention ‘CBD’ or even their location in their ads. ‘Sydney hotels the rocks’ had 390 searches, but only one advertiser mentions the phrase ‘The Rocks’ in their ads. 73 people searched for ‘3 star hotels in Sydney’ but only a handful of advertisers mention ’3 star’ or ‘3*’ in their ads. These are people who know what they want are willing to part with their cash if they can find it.

It doesn’t take long to find hundreds of other examples of keywords that have significant search volume and are being poorly served. There are opportunities everywhere.

What’s more, as demand for better search results grows, people will start making more of these 3, 4, 5 and 6-word searches and expect better, relevant, more personalised results. The winners will be the advertisers who cater for them. The losers will be the ones who don’t.

So how do I go about improving the relevancy of my AdWords campaign?

Patience

I’m not going to pretend there is a quick overnight fix (because there isn’t). A highly relevant AdWords campaign takes patience, commitment and dedication.

Nor are there techniques that work for everyone. The whole purpose of this blog is to share with you the PPC techniques I have found to work in my experience, although I recognise they will be far from the be-all-and-end-all of paid search management so I welcome your ideas and comments. Paid search is an ongoing battle to become better and better, and it isn’t going to stop any time soon.

But to keep things nice and simple, here’s a quick 5 minute run-down of the essentials of creating a highly relevant PPC campaign:

Keyword Research

Research keywords that people are searching for. There are free tools out there, such as Google’s keyword tool, so use them. Build up a comprehensive keyword list. Not just with generic, high-volume keywords, such as ‘cheap Sydney hotels’, but also with long-tail keywords such as ‘cheap hotels in Sydney CBD’ and ‘cheap hotels Sydney Darling Harbour’. Long-tails can collectively be of significant volume and provide a great opportunity for tailored ads.

Then research negative keywords, lots of them. Why waste money on clicks you know are completely irrelevant? Use the keyword tool to identify keywords that might broad match to ‘cheap Sydney hotels’. Go through each result, making a note of anything you think is irrelevant. Is your Sydney hotel miles away from Sydney Airport? If so, add ‘airport’ as a negative keyword. Keep brainstorming negatives until you have at least a hundred.

Ad Group Structure

Once you have done your initial research, group your keywords into small, closely themed ad groups of generally no more than 20-30 keywords each. Write ad descriptions that are relevant to the ad group’s keywords and include the ad group’s keywords in your ads where possible. If you think you could write a more relevant ad for a keyword if the keyword was in its own ad group, split out that keyword into its own ad group and write a more relevant and tailored ad for it.

Think of the keyword as the question and the ad as the answer. Keep asking yourself, “If I searched for this keyword and saw this ad, is it answering my question?” If not, change it so it does.

Include offers and prices that are relevant to the keyword. In your ‘Sydney Hotels Christmas 2009′ ad group, how about mentioning Christmas 2009 prices or early booking discounts?

You’re trying to make your ads as relevant as possible to the user’s searches so think about how you could angle your products or services to appeal to users searching each of your keywords.

Next, deep-link your keywords to the most relevant page on your site. Don’t have a relevant landing page for a set of keywords? Write one.

Rinse and repeat until you have hundreds of ad groups, each with tailored ads and landing pages that match the keywords they contain.

Optimization

Then get optimising. Test new keywords. New ads. New landing pages. Two keywords in the same ad group getting a lot of volume? Split the two keywords out into separate ad groups and write new ads that better match those keywords.

Run search query reports to highlight searches your keywords have broad-matched and phrase-matched to. Are they relevant? If so, ad them as new keywords in new ad groups and write tailored ads for them. If not, add them as negative keywords to prevent your ads showing for them again.

It may seem like a lot of work but it’s worth it. With patience, your CTR will start to increase. So will your Quality Score. People will start to spend longer on your site and view more pages. Returning visitors will rise as people decide to come back. Conversion rates will grow and sales volume will increase.

The Holy Grail of relevancy is not something you can achieve overnight, or achieve at all for that matter. It is only something you can strive towards. PPC success favours the dedicated. So keep testing and optimising.

Alan Mitchell is an experienced Google AdWords consultant helping businesses in Australia increase their return on investment from PPC marketing. For more information on how a highly-relevant and tailored approach to PPC can benefit your business, get in touch today for a free consultation.